


Exchange

by pinkhoodie



Series: Run Away With Me [8]
Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: F/F, Original Character(s), Post-Canon, alcohol mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 18:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20764778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkhoodie/pseuds/pinkhoodie
Summary: Sometimes being social has its perks.





	Exchange

It’s a cool day outside when Kagome wakes up and reluctantly rolls up the blanket, fluffs the pillow, pushes the bed back into place so it doesn’t take up too much room diagonally to Sango’s. Pulling on her outfit, tying her belt, she bids the house a farewell, thinking it a good idea to start making friends with the villagers. If they are to live here (the idea of which makes Kagome’s heart flutter… would she and Sango stay in the same place always? Or should she find a separate hut once they settled? Her heart aches.), then of course seeing friendly faces would be even better were they familiar.

“Good morning!” she waves to a group of early birds gathered around an outdoor fire, cooking sticks of fish and meat in a pyramid above the flames. “Mind if I join you?”

She spends the better part of her day hermitting from group to group as more people step outside, yawning and blinking into the sunlight. It doesn’t do much to warm the townspeople, but it’s still nice outside and Kagome is happy to meet new villagers and learn as much as she can about them.

Some time around noon, she hears a sharp cry, a beat of silence, and the familiar wail of a hurt child whose world was ending. “Excuse me,” she pardons herself, and follows the mom clearly rushing to her dear daughter.

“Yukiii!” The mother chides, lovingly, but sternly. Kneeling, the adult inspects her baby, somewhere around 5 or 6, Kagome guesses, and  _ tsks  _ when she sees the dirty scrape rubbed raw into her skinned elbow. “See, baby, this is why we watch where we’re going when we run around and play with our friends.”

The little girl—Yuki—hiccups and smushes her palm into her eye, wet with globs of teardrops. “I was, I was, I was—hic—just trying to, to catch Taka, I-I didn’t,” she sucks in a sharp breath, “Didn’t mean to fall.”

Kagome starts to edge closer, careful not to intrude too suddenly, as her mother coos. “Oh, sweetheart, you’re not in trouble. I just want you to be more careful next time.” She pulls the elbow towards her again and looks it over, sighing through her nose.

“Hi there,” Kagome says, fully approached. “I think I could help with that, if you want.”

“Hello, priestess.” The woman had heard about Kagome’s powers, wondered what they’d look like first-hand. “Please,” she ducks her head down and shuffles back an inch, “go ahead.”

Kagome kneels down, mirroring the girl’s mother, and holds out her hand. “Hi there, Yuki. I’m Kagome.” The girl does nothing to respond except quietly continue her barrage of hiccups. “Please don’t be scared. Could I see your elbow?” The priestess is patient as the little girl chews it over and then nods, offering the gash on her arm. “Oh my goodness. You must have been having a lot of fun when this happened, right?” The girl nods, too shy to say anything back, so Kagome offers a smile. “I want to help you feel better. Would that be okay with you, too?” The girl finally drops her hand from her face, still unable to look up at Kagome completely, but ready to speak.

“Yeah,” she mutters quietly, the cutest little pitch suiting her.

“Okay,” Kagome says. “I can teach you about this medicine, too, if you want.” She looks to the mom encouragingly, motions her closer.

She teaches her about a salve with specific ingredients that clean and then heal the wound, for whenever Kagome isn’t there to finish the job with her special touch. She bandages up the little girl when she’s done soothing the spread onto it, and tells her mother that this is where she can stop and expect the gash to heal in a day or two.

“But when I’m here,” she says, more to the little girl than to the mom, “I can do this.” She wraps her fingers around the elbow and her thumb rubs circles into the area of the wound beneath the gauze, a warmth penetrating it and then a faint, faint, veeery faint electric blue light glowing beneath it.

“Whoa!” Yuki’s eyes glow like Souta’s once did when he was a child. Her heart stutters in her chest for a minute, wondering if she’d never be so lucky to see that sparkle again, but when the sparkling eyes move back up to her to thank her, the thought disappears. Her little brother lives all around her, in the faces and footsteps and even the wounds of the children at play. Even if it’ll take some time to soothe that particular brand of heartache.

Kagome giggles and taps the bandage when she’s done, her gentle farewell. “There. Now it should only take half a day,” she says, quite proud of herself. “Please feel free to come back and see me if you guys roughhouse a little too much again!” She boops Yuki on the nose, who finally laughs in response, having been won over by the loving priestess. She tells her okay, and then runs off again, leaving her mom to sigh.

“Thank you,” she says, and then turns around to go back into the hut, muttering about how she can’t always catch her daughter and sometimes you just have to let them go.

As Kagome is about to walk off, ready to float on over to the next group of women she hasn’t met yet, she hears the familiar tapping of feet on dirt running toward her, and a gentle yank of her sleeve.

“Oh?”

“Wait, wait, Miss Kagome.” The mother she’d just seen doubles over, breathing hard as she clutches a cloth sack to her stomach. “I couldn’t, just let you, go.” There are deep gulps of air between every couple of words and Kagome has to catch herself before she giggles too rudely. But it is a little funny. “Please—take this. As repayment. I’m sure you and Miss Sango are in need of a nice meal, so dinner is on… _me!_ Tonight!” She beams,  _ fwoos  _ with a sigh, and straightens up with a hand on her hip as the other outstretches with the sack in hand.

It’s rather large, a neat little thing with a pretty knot up top, and just as Kagome’s about to ask if the mother is sure, she tells her what’s in it. “There’s meat and fruit, and a little homemade sake. For when the kids are asleep.” She winks, causing a warm glow to paint Kagome’s face, and then the bag drops into her arms before she can even say “Oh, gosh.”

Of course, she’s not really gonna give that kind of thing to Sango tonight…

A breeze washes over Kagome, and it chills her through her clothes. She shivers.

Well… maybe just a sip or two.


End file.
